askchapo

This is normal because your body will need to first adjust to functioning without alcohol in the system. I'm no expert in the sense that I've not researched the problem extensively. But I stopped drinking after a couple years of a quart+ per night. It took a month for the withdrawals to become manageable but I was able to sleep afterwards.

Exercise. Even just walking for a 20 minutes after work is better than nothing.

Try to wind down an hour before the time you go to bed.

Set an alarm on your phone (until it's habit) to do any presleep rituals you might have before that hour ie: brushing teeth, stretching, clearing your bed if you tend to leave stuff on it, preparing stuff you need for the morning etc.

Then ideally read a physical book or eink reader and avoid any screens, physical activity, eating or stress in that hour.

Another thing is practising meditation (any time of the day) helps by way of developing the skill of turning off your mind.

Extra sleepy time tea

Meleton

Militant sleep schedule

The bed is a sacred space where you sleep. No phone or screens. Don't even read a book there.

Sleeping sound scapes. But you have to figure out what it is you need. Brown noise, white noise, pink noise, rain, soft lofi music, high pitch low pitch, quiet reading of something boring etc.

Doctor help for anxiety sleep aids.

If weed doesn't work you can look into CBD specifically.

Make sure the bed is actually comfortable.

I've done a variety of these on and off through out the years.

For me, a podcast.

All good advice in this thread, I'd suggest meditation as well. It helps retrain your brain to defocus and helped me a lot with racing thoughts. Used to take me a couple hours to fall asleep, now I'm down to about 20min. Which is still higher than average but it's a lot better.

White noise, melatonin, DI.fm Space dreams helps me. Not too loud focus on it and drift away.

Right now Auralnauts has a 24/7 live stream plays some pretty chill LoFi background and silliness like Wilford Bremly reminiscing about Bea Arthurs wild parties, unless someone superchats a request.

When this happens to me I just go to sleep while watching youtube. My partner likes to use math or coding lectures but my personal go-to is the JustBackgroundNoise VOD channel. Something about Morrowind long plays in general just work for me.

The trick is to find a topic/presenter that can hold your attention just enough to make the voices stop but not so much that you stay up watching it. A lot of youtube channels have dedicated sleep subchannels where the videos are extra long and loud noises are edited out. Really just type in “[topic] to sleep to” and you should be able to find something.

Do you take any time to process your day before going to sleep? Racing thoughts are sometimes a sign that you haven’t processed and your brain is doing that while you’re trying to fall asleep sleep. You can speed up this process by journaling or meditative processing. Meditative processing means that you take about 10 minutes to let your thoughts pop up without engaging with them.

I watch a rotation of Star Trek shows that I've seen so much I've memorized them. Maybe you have something like that. It's like how oldtimers read the bible before bed. Something so familiar you don't need to pay attention, and then boom.

• Get some physical activity during the day so you're physically tired. If you can't, try to at least do some push-ups and/or squats right before bed.
• No sugar or caffeine for 3 hours before bed.
• Melatonin.
• Earplugs, if noise is an issue.
• No phone use in bed
• If possible, try to avoid doing things other than sleeping in your bedroom. IIRC your brain will have more difficulty resting if you also engage in other activities in the same physical space.

I learned to do 4-4-4-4 breathing before sleeping. Usually 5 mins is enough, but it can be extended to 15mins. It helps to clear your stress/anxiety, and relax. Set a timer, lay flat in bed, then :

4 seconds inhale

4 seconds hold

4 seconds exhale

4 seconds hold

Repeat until the timer is expired.

Don't force the breathing, you don't need to blow all your air/fill the lungs, you would feel light headed and out of breath. Just gentle breathing through the nose is enough. If it helps, you can also place a hand on your abdomen while doing this. The first time is not that easy, but it becomes routine quite fast.

Tried edibles or tinctures? And correct strain?

Lots of good advice in here, and you'll have to just try a lot of it to see what works for you. I will also mention "lucid dreaming". There's a whole practice around it and it requires building some habits, but it can be a lot of fun.

Jork the hog